Lost in the Sauce
by insomniasucks
Summary: I've been here before, but the memory isn't mine. It's from a different time, a different me. Modern AU - Reincarnation.


disc: all me

"If a man does not have sauce, then he is lost. But the same man can get lost in the sauce." - Gucci Mane

Sweat clings to me like a blanket, keeping my shaking body warm. My actual blanket is on the floor, discarded at some point during the night. This is how I usually wake up, except sometimes I scream too. The fact that I'm not tells me it's going to be a mild day.

Or night. I can never tell what time it is inside my room. It's dark because the blinds are always shut, and I don't own a lightbulb. The only source of illumination comes from my electric eel's aquarium. I thought she could strike lightning but all she does is swim around and indiscernibly tase me whenever I try to feed her.

Eventually the remnants of my nightmare wilt and sleep paralysis loosens its grip. There's a fine line between vibing and vegetating and just as I straddle it, the door opens and kills the mood.

It's my mom. I can tell by the shuffle of her Fendi slippers. And the sound of her face getting swatted by the sword fern she insists on hanging by the door. Says it's feng shui for the bad vibes riddled in this room, but all the burnt sage and amethyst in the world couldn't clear the negative energy in here.

I peel my eyes open slowly. She only bothers to come in when it's a school day.

"Missed the bus," She says, draining an unfinished water bottle into the pot. That plant would've been long gone if it weren't for the countless half-empty bottles of Fiji I have lying around.

"I had another bad dream," I mumble, rising to stare at myself in the mirror. For some reason my brain forces me to endure them until I'm exactly forty-two minutes late to class.

She walks past my bed and shakes her head. She doesn't believe me, says it's just an excuse to skip first period. Which isn't entirely wrong. I do actually have really bad dreams but attending first period isn't exactly my priority. I'm always willing to explain how dreadful the teacher is, but she never wants to hear it.

"Why am I so ugly?" I say instead, frowning at my reflection.

"Those are your father's genes." She says, drawing the blinds open. I get to suffer through my hideous reaction in the mirror as my eyes adjust to the scorching sunlight.

The reason why I even live in these vampiric conditions is because of my dad. A certain type of glaucoma runs in his family and manifests into blindness by fifty. We all have decent vision until puberty and then rely on medication and surgery to fend off the heirloom. My corneas are too distorted for contacts, and I refuse to wear glasses, so I'm a sitting duck until I turn eighteen and get Lasik.

The pressure in my left eye is substantially worse. It gets so red sometimes I feel like it's on fire. I wish I could just get an eyeball transplant.

Along with the latent disease running through their veins, the men in his family also age terribly. My dad himself acknowledged this and still made the conscious decision to spawn and pass those undesirable, destructive traits down. Seriously, Itachi is in his early twenties and looks like he's pushing forty.

I can't believe my mom agreed to reproduce with someone like my dad. She's completely out of his league. I don't even know what kind of genetic mutation anomaly is responsible for us bypassing her asian DNA during our conception and essentially budding my dad's. While his features are handsomely suited for his face, they look odd on me and Itachi, but mostly me.

"When are your ageless genes gonna come through?"

"Those are reserved for my daughter."

It's no secret she wanted a girl. She was fine with having Itachi, but my Y-chromosome was entirely unwelcome. I sometimes wonder if she got her tubes tied because she didn't want to risk having a third son.

"Mom, seriously. My jowls, my tear troughs." I say, scrubbing my face.

I used to look a lot like my mom when I was younger, meaning I was actually cute. It all went downhill when I turned thirteen. It's like I'm a completely different person now.

"I'm not buying you more Juvéderm."

"Fuck filler, I need a facelift."

She sighs and rubs her temples. I watch her take a valium out of her robe pocket and down it with a sip from her mug.

"And maybe share some of that bone broth? I could really use the collagen."

She shakes her head. "Itachi will be here soon. Get dressed."

She leaves without closing the door. This type of behavior normally gets people thrown down the stairs but because she's my mother it only makes my eye twitch.

Get dressed, she says, but do I have clean laundry? No.

My clothes are littered on the floor along with my water bottles. I'm too tall for small, and too thin for medium, so everything fits poorly. My sleeves are always too long and all my pants have to belted on the very last loop. Whenever I dress myself, I end up looking like some desperate e-boy.

I throw on clothes that smell the least offensive and look back at my reflection.

Okay. Wrinkly t-shirt and relatively clean joggers. I could really do worse, considering I used to wear turtlenecks and shorts. I throw on a BAPE kimono to reduce the mediocrity.

After spending five minutes in front of the mirror, I realize it's not my outfit ruining my look. It's my face. How can I sleep for ten hours and still look this bad?

Just as I wonder if the kimono is too John Mayeresque, something barely audible shifts from outside my room.

Having shit eyesight isn't all bad because it heightens my other senses. No matter how stealthy my brother is, I hear him before catching sight of him in the mirror. And I am nothing short of delighted to find out Itachi looks worse than me in his tropical button-up tucked into pinstripe trousers and crocs. His sight is even worse than mine so he has to wear sunglasses at all times. The designer shades and ponytail really solidify his drug dealer drip.

"You," he says menacingly.

People say we look alike but I just don't see it. He's more… womanly. Even though he looks more like dad. If we had an aunt, Itachi would look like her. As it stands, he looks like sad Keanu.

"Soulja boy tell 'em." I say, turning on my heel.

I spring on my bed, hit my head on the three-blade ceiling fan, and try to dunk on him. He grabs my wrist and uses the momentum to fling me into the bathroom.

I don't come out until my face is washed, teeth are brushed, and hair is managed. I have no time to bathe. It's for the best really, I don't look any better clean.

When I get downstairs, Itachi's raiding the pantry.

"Where's mom?" He asks, selecting a granola bar from the variety pack.

"Asleep." I say, pulling on my sneakers. I tied the laces too tightly and couldn't detangle them, so now I just slip them on like this.

My mom hates when I leave them out in the foyer, she says I get filth in the grout of her Pinterested penny floor. I don't care. I love the feeling of climbing the stairs in my socks, so all my shoes stay down here.

"Still?" he says, checking his Rolex. That used to be my dad's watch. He'd gifted it to Itachi when he graduated high school. Itachi tried to give it back when he dropped out of college, but my dad wouldn't take it.

I don't know where they stand these days. But no matter how much Itachi disappoints him, I know he'll always be his favorite.

I stomp my feet into the shoes, grab the coldest Yakult in the fridge, and race Itachi to the car. Half of it is chugged before he pulls out of the driveway and by the time we get to school it's completely drained.

He parks on the roundabout and lets the song end before clicking the doors unlocked.

I stretch in the seat, pretending I didn't hear it.

"As much I cherish these early morning drives, I really have to go. Have a good day at school."

Itachi used to walk me to school every day when we were younger. After he moved out, I barely saw him. I'm practically an orphan.

"Not in the cards. Can I play one more song?"

He shakes his head. "You're late."

"Exactly. I'm already late so it doesn't matter."

"Maybe you should wake up earlier."

"Maybe you should stop selling crack."

He doesn't really sell crack. At least, I don't think. Nobody knows where he goes or what he does because he doesn't reply to phone calls or texts. He just fucks off for a few days but is somehow always available to drive me to school when I'm late.

"Maybe I should." he says. "Now get out of my car, I've got crack to sell."

I disconnect my phone and grab my bag.

"And Sasuke,"

"Yeah?"

"Learn something." He says, shoving my temple.

I swat his hand away. Even though I miss him, I hate when he touches me.

He pushes his sunglasses up and grabs me by the shoulder, digging his thumb into the jut of my collarbone. He's so close I could count his eyelashes. His tear troughs are a lot deeper than mine, and he has crow's feet already. We really look nothing alike.

"Seriously, stop fucking around on your phone and pay attention."

I tear his hand off. As if anything could stop me from shitposting during class. "Okay, boomer."

I make sure to slam the door shut. He takes his foot off the brake when I pass the front of his car so I walk slower, calling his bluff.

He cracks his window open, "Love you,"

I turn around so he can see my middle finger. "Love you too."

I do. He's the only person I know who would stay up to learn a K-pop choreography with me at four in the morning and then take me out for a McMuffin an hour later. We learned six dances that night. We can't see worth a damn, but we've got photographic memory.

First period is chem. I like chemistry but not the teacher. He had my brother so as his legacy, he despises me.

"Late again, Uchiha." Deidara says, holding his hand out like clockwork.

I place the tardy slip in his slick palm. Deidara sickens me. He always licks his fingers while paging through the text even though his hands are already abnormally sweaty. He must have the most severe case of hyperhidrosis because he's also constantly reapplying his melted eyeliner.

"Yeah. Looks like my suicidal grind failed, so here I am."

"There's always tomorrow." He says, crumpling the slip. "Sit with Shino."

I'm used to getting paired with Naruto since our last names are so close in the alphabet, but he's flunked this class twice, so I'm usually stuck with Shino. He normally sits alone because no one can stand being around him for more than ten minutes. At least I'm always late so I don't have to be near him for the entire hour.

I suck my teeth. "Man, I fucking hate Abu Dhabi."

"It's Aburame," Shino says, frowning.

I'm fully aware it's Aburame, but nine years ago everyone saw him eat a grasshopper during recess and freaked out. He tried justifying it by saying it was technically a locust and that they were considered a delicacy in the middle east, but nobody bought that shit and he's been Abu Dhabi ever since.

His only moderately redeeming quality would be the time he kicked someone's ass in middle school. The kid and his friends were from a school no one'd heard of and started messing with us. For the record, I threw down with that same kid a few days prior, so that's probably what gave Shino an edge. Still, I only dislocated the kid's shoulder, Shino fucking fractured his ulna in three places.

I haven't thought about that for years but now seems like a good time to bring it up.

"Hey," I whisper, keeping an eye on Deidara. "You remember the time you broke that kid's arm?"

Deidara is as vigilant as he is pathetic. Class typically consists of an assigned chapter to review in our book and following the corresponding lab, today's no different. It's all just busy work for us to do while he makes pots with the clay he steals from ceramics. He likes to talk about how chemistry is actually the science of art and chemical reactions being, in his words, _as fleeting as they are beautiful_. If dumpsters were verbal, that's the kind of horseshit they'd say.

When Itachi was in his class, he'd discovered Deidara's MySpace page where he complained about how he misses his home up north and how much he hates his job and how he was never certified to teach, how he started off as a substitute and stayed because no one else would hire him and the school couldn't afford a real teacher. Itachi exposed Deidara to the whole class and that's why he can't stand us.

If I didn't find his existence so disgraceful, I would say his pots are objectively kind of nice. His room is full of them so they're a little hard not to appreciate.

Shino looks up from the text, but his sunglasses make it impossible to tell if he's looking at me or that tempting cobweb in the corner. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Uchiha," Deidara snaps, "Shut your filthy mouth and focus on the assignment."

The palm I was resting my cheek on upturns indignantly. "I wasn't talking."

Deidara's mouth twists, his makeup running again. This is exactly how he looked when he first saw my name on the attendance roster. He fucking erupts and snatches the nearest pot on the chalkboard sill.

"That's enough! I've had it." He snarls and launches it in my direction. It smashes against someone's desk a few feet away. This type of brutality is usually reserved for Kiba saying there's three Hydrogen atoms in a water molecule for the eighth time in a row, but it looks like my harmless nostalgia merits a potential skull-smashing.

When I was twelve years old, I got painfully addicted to energy drinks. The insomnia and heart-palpitations worried my parents, so they took me to a doctor. The doctor chalked up the shakes and restlessness to behavioral problems. Even after blatantly telling her I poured Red Bull in my Froot Loops, she still tried to diagnose me with fucking ADHD.

My dad got pissed because he thought ADHD meant retarded and told me not to listen to her. So, I ended up with an unchecked caffeine addiction that wreaked havoc on my pubescent body. I cried, sweat, and bled Monster Energy. My neurons were useless without the artificial hotwiring. I had to chug a 5-Hour Energy every other hour just to function. This intensified my glaucoma and nearly killed me. My heart stopped and I was pronounced dead for a few seconds before they pulled out the defibrillators. I wasn't supposed to live to see seventeen.

Basically, I have the anatomy of a teenager, the physiology of a junkie, the vision of a bat, and the reflexes of a zucchini.

So when that pot grazed my ear, my impaired little brain recognized a threat and pumped adrenaline right into my bloodstream. I gasped, pupils dilating, feeling reborn. The newfound energy startled me so much I started shaking. I slammed my palms on the desk and shoved myself off the chair.

"Really? You've _had_ it? After wasting four years and fifty-thousand dollars on a degree nobody gives a shit about, moving down here all alone, and being forced to teach in a Title 1 school. That was bearable, but this—_this_ is the last straw? Everything was okay up until the point I asked Abu Dhabi a question?"

The room is quiet. It usually is when I start screaming like a troubled teen in a red state. It doesn't help that I'm pale enough to pass for white.

The only one unfazed is the socially stunted Shino, who's packing up while everyone is frozen in place.

"Honestly, Sasuke, shut up already." The insect-feasting fuck has the gall to say, "Stop making stuff up. I'm not trying to talk to you—"

"Who said I wanna fucking talk to you? I was just asking if you remembered the only faintly cool thing you've ever done with your life, that I explicitly helped you with, you ingrate. Now go do everyone a favor and crawl back inside your cocoon."

His mouth opens. I want to say something about shutting it before flies nest but suddenly catch myself in his sunglasses. I look like an exterminator. "And while you're at it, take those fucking sunglasses off. Who do you think you are? Bad Bunny?"

The bell rings before he can respond. I'm the first to leave.

I should've just spared myself the trouble and spent the last five minutes of the period shadow boxing in the handicap stall. Or just never have woken in the first place.

Second period is gym. The sun's out and I burn like a bitch, but I'm too eager to run this rush off to care.

Rock lee graduated last year but couldn't cope with being apart from Coach Guy for twelve hours instead of just ten, so he came back as his assistant. Because fuck college and personal development, I guess? They take the teacher-student relationship to a new level. It'd be inspiring if it didn't make my skin creep.

I never used to run because I was a huge fucking scene kid and could barely even walk in my skinny jeans. I was too insecure about my twiggy legs to change into shorts, so I just sat my laps out with Chouji. He didn't run because his counterfeit doctor's note prohibited him from doing anything other than eating Funyuns on the bleachers. He was cool enough to share with me, so we got along.

Now that my whole wardrobe is basically athleisure, I don't have to change. I throw my backpack on the lawn and start running.

Sakura and Naruto are always grilling me at the gym because all I do is run on the treadmill. They say they'd snap my bony cardio ass, but I don't care if they can bench five of me with one hand. Who needs bulging muscles when I can easily outrun an entire army of gym-rats?

Coach Guy gives me a thumbs-up as I finish my first lap. I used to get hassled about not joining track, but the unavoidable relay races always steered me away. Lee is the only one faster than me, but since he graduated, I have no one to rely on.

Naruto's dad was apparently a track prodigy in his youth, so Naruto runs despite being completely asthmatic. I don't feel like listening to his labored voice begging me for his inhaler when he passes me the baton.

Since Guy and Lee are still salty about it, I'm exempt from doing anything other than running all period. I tried running with them once and threw up eight miles in. They noticed when they finished two hours later. I'd vomited during the warm up.

Ten laps is enough for now, so I throw myself on the grass by my bag. I pull my phone out and start fucking around, scrolling through Twitter, ignoring Guy. I end up skipping the next two classes and walk to the cafeteria when the bell rings.

I don't have any lunch and the cafeteria doesn't take card, so I have to mooch off my fellow chums. I see a short girl walking in that I immediately recognize by the smell of fast food.

Hinata has some sort of anxiety disorder that conveniently inhibits her from being in public for more than a few minutes. Meaning she attends school for lunch and then gets overstimulated and has to leave or risk a breakdown. Even though I initially thought 'debilitating social-anxiety' stood for 'pussy-ass bitch', I get where she's coming from now. These assholes are draining.

I remember thinking she was illiterate because in seventh grade she was asked to orate a paragraph in our history book. It took her all class to read the first three sentences. She stuttered on her ums, it was agony. After class, I asked her if she was dyslexic and she told me she's got the type of crippling anxiety that chokes her up during public speaking.

After I googled that entire diagnoses, we sat on the stairs and skipped class. She bought a bottle of Sprite to stay hydrated while crying about her childhood. She said she's like this because her dad something—something. The story was honestly too convoluted to understand and she's a terrible communicator. But honestly, a clear message and delivery wouldn't matter since her appearance was so distracting. I couldn't follow if I wanted to, she's just that gorgeous.

I think the real reason her dad doesn't like her is because she's not stuck-up like them. She's too down to earth. The hoodie she'd worn all through middle school became distressed and indistinguishable from something off a Yeezy runway. When she saw how much they went for, she donated it to Goodwill and thrifted herself a lavender windbreaker for two bucks.

It drives her family crazy that she chooses to look like a flea market tramp while her little sister's bedroom is wallpapered with hundred-dollar bills.

They're insanely wealthy. Old money. The type of money you couldn't make in three lifetimes. Jeff Bezos type shit. They like to subtly remind people of this, but they don't flat out floss like my dad.

Despite making good money, my dad is cheap as fuck and hates spending a dime on even the necessities, but he loves to flex. Especially, almost exclusively, in front of the Hyuugas. Ten Christmases ago, I was assigned Hinata for Secret Santa and when he found out about their twenty-dollar price limit, he made me gift her an iced-out WELFARE chain.

And since he's got beef with pretty much every other man in the city, he likes to save up for the sole purpose of showing off. As chief of police, my dad works all day and night. The house is paid off, Itachi isn't in college anymore, and we don't go on any vacations, so he doesn't have much else to spend his money on.

Even though our first interactions were just vicarious dick-measuring contests between our dads, we never fostered any hard feelings. She's my big-titty health goth girlfriend. Who is neither goth nor my girlfriend, but she does have big titties.

She's also got a big heart, so she always buys a metric fuckton of food and shares with Sakura, the aspiring pre-med student, and Ino, the vaping hypebeast-instathot. Seriously. She's got B-list SoundCloud rappers in her comments.

Ino actually used to be really pretty a few years ago. Her looks faded in the short span of two years and she really fell off. But damn, for that timeframe, she was hot as fuck. Now she looks like Donatella Versace and Britney Spears' unloved daughter.

I don't know if it's her genetics or lifestyle that did her dirty at seventeen. It's possible that all the exposure to electricity from taking selfies and updating her stories sped up her aging, which is a real thing according to an article I once read at four in the morning. Even if that's bullshit, she clearly doesn't drink enough water.

But she sure guzzles those frappuccinos. I don't know if the Starbucks cup itself acts the finishing accessory to her outfits or if she's vaped all her taste buds off and doesn't mind the flavor of watered-down coffee. Not to sound like my skimp dad but I'd sooner eat shit and die than willingly spend five of his hard-earned dollars on low-grade coffee served in some overinflated mermaid cup. Seriously, they fucking charge for ice water.

Sakura is a cruelty-free vegan, who lives in her ugly scrubs and strictly eats clean shit, like hash brownie-hummus. She's currently highlighting something. She's always got some huge test to cram for, so she's glued to her notes.

Hinata hefts a bag on the table and starts unpacking the food. She aligns the burgers into neat rows and piles the fries into a tray in the middle. Hinata unknowingly makes the power move of the decade when she pours honey mustard all over and renders them non-vegan by Sakura's standards. She then opens two boxes of pizza and I take a slice from the one with pepperoni. Sakura looks on disapprovingly.

"At least take the meat off." She scoffs.

She's always talking about how feedlots are not only inhumane but also taxing on our own resources. But really, who the hell cares? It's not my call. She honestly believes that me picking the meat off my pizza is going to change the world. Like, wow, Papa Johns' CEO crushed that selectively vegetarian teens peel pepperoni from pizza, pressures government to sanction nationwide cattle production. It's an unnecessary step towards an unrealistic goal.

It's the equivalent of begging people to like your Facebook status so your mom will stop doing meth.

"Give me one good reason why,"

"It causes cancer." She says as if I give a shit about my health.

"You think deodorant causes cancer." I say around a full mouth.

_Meat is murder, Sasuke. Eat ass not animals, Sasuke_. Whatever. She can act as caring as she wants but it doesn't change the fact that she unironically retweeted a KONY2012 post and I'll never let her live it down.

Anyways, since she's vegan, only Hinata and Ino feast. And since Ino is bulimic, only Hinata digests.

When Tenten was around she used to digest too, but she got expelled for possession of assault weapons on campus. Which was total bullshit, because it wasn't actually a weapon. I mean, maybe by definition, but not formally. She was just one creative son of a gun and could fashion a pair of scissors, some staples, and a roll of tape into something that could put Uziel to shame. I miss her and her unmatched big dick energy. She could blow my back out anytime.

What happened to these girls? I mean, I'm glad they're aging as terribly as me, but I can't help but grieve their past selves. They used to be so lively. Except Hinata, who reigns supreme with her long, thick hair. I'm glad she grew it out. Her ass-length hair she probably has to hold while peeing honestly reminds me a bit of my mom. And not in the Oedipus complex way, more in the disputably-addicted-to-xanax way.

I would ask her out but she's the only woman with enough sense to deny me. Besides, she's obsessed with Naruto. Obsessed, as in, failed on purpose just to be in summer school with him. I thought she'd have matured and told him by now, but she can't even look at him without getting a hot flash. Not that he notices, he obliviously flirts with other girls in front of her. Personally, I blame her dad for conditioning her to confuse this as love from men.

Sakura was an even bigger scene kid than me in middle school and dyed her hair pink all three years. By the end, it was so overly processed and fried that she had to cut it all off. Now it barely grows so she just keeps it in a headband that does nothing for her receding hairline.

Ino's hair thinned out from malnourishment, so she got extensions a few months ago. They look kind of ratty, but I told her they looked good for a hit off her Juul.

In our youth, Sakura and Ino used to compete over who had longer hair. Two things were hot in fifth grade: long hair and me. I swear to god, that was my prime. Now that I've peaked, and short hair is the wave, people try desperately to separate those things from their identity. I don't know why I'm in the reminiscing kind of mood today.

"Hey, I just remembered something. Do you guys remember when you used to fight over me?"

Hinata crams half a burger into her mouth knowing I'm not talking to her. Nobody says anything. Sakura's highlighter squeaks over another sentence.

"When we were, like, ten?" I clarify, "You two used to fight over who was gonna be my girlfriend."

After dipping a handful of fries in her frappe and licking whipped cream off her acrylic nail, Ino says, "Remember when you fantasized about us fighting over you?"

"Seriously, get over yourself." Sakura says into her book.

Then they went back to ignoring me. I sat there stunned. Eventually the fluorescents began bothering me more than the rejection. I reached for a parting fry and made my way to a less crowded table.

Fuck these girls. I'm sitting with my boy.

Naruto wasn't always my boy. I used to hate him back then. Everybody did. The only reason he'd get invited to birthday parties was so we could all ignore him. He'd lose his mind and then cry outside on the porch swing. I still kinda hate him. The only reason I sit next to him now is because his mom's Dominican so his lunch always slaps.

He kicks a chair out when he sees me. "Hey, dickweed."

"Hello," I say, trying to swallow Hinata's food as discreetly as possible.

"You hungry?" he asks, already pulling out his lunch. I watch him count six individual tostones and give me three. Primitive, but I'm too touched about him splitting his lunch with me to say anything.

I've known him all my life. Our moms are best friends, so our playdates were just their excuse to hang out. His mom's loud and dyes her hair the most unnatural shade of red. She talks funny too, with her twice-accented English coupled with a raspy voice. She's like the maternal version of Bhad Bhabie. And her actual name is Kushina, making her the butt to all my weed jokes. His dad thinks they're funny and calls her his dank dame sometimes.

Even though our moms are friends, our dads don't talk. They were running against each other for mayor. Naruto's dad got elected and then promptly resigned to be a present father. Since then, the whole town's blamed Naruto for the shithole it's become. Hurricane floods streets? Naruto. Citywide blackout from shit weather? Fucking Naruto. Your daughter crashed her car? That damn demon-child.

He grew up hearing terrible things about him and that's why he had no friends. It's also why Naruto is so insufferable now. He can't have a conversation without mentioning his miserable childhood. Yeah, it's fucked up but can he just let it go? He loops every inconvenience back to his upbringing, he feels entitled to friends and being taken seriously. Every test he fails or ass kicking he gets feeds into his victim narrative. It's pathetic. He mentions his past more than his mom mentions she's from New York.

The demand for respect wouldn't be so bad if it were even minutely justified. He has a lot of bad ideas, and no way of executing them. No clout, no experience, no money. He's always talking about reclaiming his dad's title and cleaning the city up. I hate to burst his bubble but there's something frankly intolerable about his particular breed of ignorance.

Still, he's a beautiful boy. He was runty and feral when he was a kid but puberty actually worked in his favor. He's over six feet tall, tan, and unreasonably handsome. A blond curl falls over his blue eyes, and I have to bite my finger to stop from reaching out and nudging it away. Between all this good food and eye candy, I really can't complain.

"I just want things to change, you know."

"Yeah," I say, processing nothing. This mayo-ketchup fucks hard.

He knows I'm not listening. I know he knows.

He rolls his eyes, "Yeah, right. Like you could ever relate. You probably love the way things are set."

"Could be worse," I agree. "But you seem alright."

"Alright?" He says, "I blow all my money ubering to and from work. I literally have to work to continue working."

I swallow my last tostone, almost choking on it. Naruto loves to shit talk me because I don't have to work. He delivers pizza for Domino's and somehow blames me for it.

"And what are you doing about it? Continuing to work in a job that keeps you poor?"

Naruto has a killer smile and nice teeth, but I think he looks best when he frowns. His jaw sets and his eyebrows furrow attractively. "I already told you, I'm working 'til my money's right so I can run the city."

"Run the city," I repeat, floored. "You couldn't run a dank meme finsta with all the stolen content in the world."

"Shut up, asshole."

"Your life is a stunning display of incompetence. But that's okay, buddy. It's not your fault you didn't get enough stimulation as a baby."

"Suck my dick. I'm just saying it's unfair that I've got to bust ass and still can't afford a car."

"And that's my fault?"

"Your brother dropped you off in a Lamborghini."

"Yeah, but that's his. He doesn't let me touch it."

"Because you crashed your Jag in Hinata's pool."

"Driving your ass home. You should've just called your mom, "

"She doesn't have a car either. Meanwhile, your mom drives a Tesla."

"It's an outdated model. Plus, I hate it."

"Your dad's cop car is a literal Ferrari."

"All the cop cars in Dubai are luxury." I snap, reaching for one of his tostones. "Try being a little culturally-sensitive around me, asshole."

He seizes my wrist before I can grab one. If his hand wasn't clutching mine with enough force to break it, we'd look like an ad promoting diversity.

"Culturally-sensitive? You can't even speak Arabic."

I love having my ethnicity invalidated. I squint up at him. My eyes are enough, the lashes, the brows, the fucking circles under them. "That's because I don't talk to my dad, fuckwad. What's your excuse for not speaking Spanish? Not that I'm surprised. You can barely speak English."

I should know better than to bring up his disturbingly low reading level. It's a fair trade, I suppose. He's built but dumb. But sweet. But annoying. But gorgeous.

"Well, you can't speak Japanese, so."

Oh, good one. Aside from my mom being a first generation Japanese-American, she's legally obligated to pass down her native tongue to me, otherwise I'm some phony. And for the record, I can speak Japanese, I just don't because my brother makes fun of my accent. Itachi and my mom have conversations in fluent Japanese, it drives my dad crazy. Even though I can kinda grasp what they're talking about, I'm usually just as lost as my dad.

"You know what else I don't speak?" I say and plug my air pods in. "Broke."

Gucci Flip Flops seems like the most appropriate song to play. Fuck impending cochlear damage, I turn the volume up so loud he can hear it through my nostrils.

He yells something that sounds suspiciously like boujee bastard.

"Can't hear you, poverty."

He yanks my phone out of my hand and taps pause.

"You know why I'm so poor anyway? It's because of the unequal distribution of wealth in this city."

He says this like I'm the one responsible for half the taxes going towards the police department. Naruto is too dumb to actually understand the intricacies of this corrupt city. And there are layers to this degeneracy. He doesn't know that my dad was cheated out of the legislature by the sheer discrimination this city was founded on, meanwhile his all-American daddy got elected. Itachi explained this to me when I asked how come dad ate in his study whenever Naruto stayed for dinner, and I got so upset I started crying. The disenfranchisement fucking seared me.

I have nothing against his dad, I actually like him a lot. But goddamn it, if he was just going to quit a few days in, why couldn't they have given it to my dad instead of reappointed the old mayor who's three minutes away from dying. This is why I don't feel an ounce of guilt for all the money going towards the police department. Not that I support the force because fuck twelve, but those motherfuckers owe my dad a lot more than a six-figure salary.

Naruto just believes everything his parents tell him, like the fucking gullible only child he is. Having siblings builds character. That birth-order shit? All facts. Even if the sibling rivalry is real and I'll never amount to my letdown of a brother, I'd still prefer being his little brother than being an only child. Hinata gets it. Her little sister makes TikToks to 6ix9ine's music, but in her dad's eyes she'll always outshine Hinata. She knows what it's like to identify with inferiority. Only children are too sheltered, they simply don't have the range.

I stare at Naruto. This bitterness wasn't always there but we were never exactly friendly either. We used to play Itachi's CDs and wipe the floor with each other. Our fights were so intense people would record them.

This is a prime example of how they'd usually start, he'd say something dumb and I'd swing first. "Shut up before you get dicked again."

"By who?" he says, looking around.

"Who do you think?" I grin, "Stop acting like you forgot."

"Forgot what?"

"Our fights."

"We used to fight?"

"We used to beat the living shit out of each other. C'mon, you remember. We'd listen to Papa Roach and go to town."

"What the fuck?"

I blink at him. There's no way he doesn't remember. Our peers thrived off our fights, it's all they'd talk about.

"Dude. _Papa Roach_. Cut my life into pieces, this is my last resort." I sang in sync to the lyrics. That bassline is literally etched into my brainstem. I'll forget how to breathe before I forget Last Resort.

I'm starting to hyperventilate. Naruto looks worried. "Um."

"You," I swallow, "You punched me so hard in the face I started crying."

"Holy shit. I did?"

"It was Neji's profile picture for a month."

"Damn." He covers his mouth with his fist, "So, I won?"

I brush my bangs off my sweaty forehead, "Won? You got fucking bodied."

It was a close fight, but I mercied him. I always do. Our scoreboard is 5-1. Even though he used to get his ass handed to back then, I seriously doubt I could take him now. He's got about eighty pounds of muscle on me.

"I lost? You just said I hit you so hard you cried,"

"Yeah, okay, you landed one solid punch. I still fucking rocked your shit, Naruto."

He runs a hand through his hair, "Are you for real?"

"Kiba put it on fucking WorldStar. We didn't talk for the rest of middle school." I recap, "_Yes_, I'm for real. Why the hell would I lie about that?"

I fly out of my seat and into his, grab him by the shoulders and shake him vigorously. He's so startled that he's limp. "Don't fuck with me. You know exactly what I'm talking about."

"Sasuke, you're—" he chokes, "None of that ever happened."

I wrap my hands around his backpack straps and growl. I'd ask him if he remembered kissing me but he'd just deny that too. I look him right in the eye. He's a bad liar, his eyes dart all over the place and his voice rises in pitch. He isn't lying right now.

The strangest thing is that I almost believe him. Even though I vividly remember doing all those things, there's an unsettling part of me that recognizes the memories are from a separate cache than my own.

The chair tips over until I'm sitting on his stomach. He stares up at me for a few seconds. We have the entire lunchroom's eyes on us.

Someone finds it necessary to say, "Sus,"

Naruto finally grunts and pushes me off. There's something eerily familiar about the way I skid on the floor, cheek pressed to the cold tile. I've been here before, but the memory isn't mine. It's from a different time, a different me.

I wince at the harsh lighting and loud ring of the bell. People step around my body as they leave. When I lift my head, Naruto's gone.

I get up and go to my last class. The day isn't over but after Kakashi's, I'm done.

On the way, I spot Shikamaru by his locker where he openly deals to students and teachers alike. Genma slides him a twenty and Shikamaru casually hands him a dime bag.

There was a rumor about his mom getting so stoned during his gestation that his first hotbox was in utero. Which I don't believe, since I personally saw his mom beat his ass when she caught us smoking in the seventh grade.

He's never not smoking now. It's inseparable from his entity. His shadow smokes. And the smell clings to him like a second skin. It's gross, but his shit is the best in town. I've read his file on my dad's office. It's thick. He's the reason why my dad never gives me cash. Since I can never directly buy weed from him, I have to get him Wendy's in exchange for a gram. His girlfriend is the actual plug, because her dad traffics in Chile. Her entire family's cutthroat as fuck.

I've also seen her kick his ass a few times. Now that I think about it, Shikamaru has a long history of being publicly humiliated by women. He's always said he hates women, but I think he's the biggest feminist for it.

"Hey." I say aimlessly. "Remember when your girlfriend kicked your ass?"

Genma sticks a blunt in his mouth and walks away. Shikamaru stares silently.

I stare back. "Before you ask, I don't know what I'm on. I just wanted to say I think it's really progressive."

Kakashi technically teaches English but he calls it silent study time, so it's a free period as long as we're quiet enough for him to read.

"Howdy." I say, collapsing on my desk.

He doesn't look up from Fifty Shades Darker. This is probably the twelfth time he's read the trilogy.

Kiba claims the empty seat next to me before I can throw my bag over it. His service dog barks hello.

"Fuck off."

Kiba is a Z-list SoundCloud artist. Meaning people buy his tracks and delete them so no one has to hear them. The only listens he gets are when someone plays his songs at parties and tries to embarrass him. He's too much of an idiot to realize we're laughing at him.

"Hey, Sasuke. What's got you so down?"

My eyes burn. I feel like crying blood.

"Losing my sight," I murmur, "Losing my mind. Wish somebody would tell me I'm fine."

"Bars!" Kiba says.

Kakashi throws a dry erase marker at him. "Quiet."

"Just saying, Sasuke could really bring some heat into this collab I got with Killer B."

"Unless it's featuring George Strait or Blake Shelton, I doubt he will." Kakashi says, flipping a page.

I peel my face off my desk so fast I almost get whiplash. "What did you say?"

"We were just talking about how you're a country legend."

"Country legend," I mumble. I rub my eyes viciously and tip my head back. Why the fuck does that ring a bell?

"Kakashi," My voice cracks. "Do you believe in reincarnation?"

"Nope." He replies, eyes on his book. "Although, if you're asking if you really are a barefoot, banjo-playing renegade, the answer is yes."

I honestly have no idea who I am anymore. Is this the result of poor sleep quality?

I'm starting to wonder if my entire childhood was just some sort of hallucination unique to my family. The memories are either hereditary delusions or completely true and these dicks are just so ashamed of their past, that they all collectively repressed it without telling me.

Today sucked. I wanna go home, back into my dark room, and lie in my bed. Even if I get eternal night terrors, I never wanna wake up, I wanna stay asleep.

_  
fuck is up?


End file.
